


of grit and gold

by flwwrbys



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Growing Up, M/M, actually it’s not very romantic, sad sad boy! mark, sunflower boy! hyuck, very very very very side dojae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 19:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flwwrbys/pseuds/flwwrbys
Summary: mark grows up with grit as donghyuck grows up like gold.donghyuck has always been golden.





	of grit and gold

mark is an almost-boy. 

this means that he is incomplete. granted, he is a full human in structure, but at heart, he is an almost-boy. this is because his heart is empty and he cannot love. his mother told him mark I do not want a disgusting heartempty like you. get out of my house.

mark cried. mark said mom, I love you. I am not heartempty. I love you.

his mother stares down at him with a mix of fear and disgust and repulsion and mark understands. his mother is scared of him. even though mark is six and mark doesn’t know many things, he knows his mother is scared of him. 

his mother sends him to the orphanage the next day.

he meets people at the orphanage. the people are nice and the food is okay and he forgets about his mom on the second day. he cries really badly when he finds out he cannot remember his mom’s face. he can only remember her voice calling him disgusting.

* * *

when mark is seven, he meets lee donghyuck for the first time. donghyuck wasn’t heartempty, but his parents were poor and couldn’t afford him anymore. donghyuck is just like him. donghyuck is forgotten and donghyuck is unneeded.

donghyuck has a nice smile and he smells like a flower field. when donghyuck looks at mark, mark thinks that the sun had a child and put him on planet earth, in this orphanage that doesn’t have a lot but has nice smiles.

mark wants to give a nice smile, too. but he remembers his mother say mark, don’t smile. mark, your smile is terrifying. mark, your smile is disturbing. mark, stop smiling.

so mark doesn’t smile. he is sure that donghyuck smiles enough for the both of them. no, he is sure that donghyuck smiles enough for the whole world.

* * *

mark grows up quickly. this is because there are other small children in the orphanage and he knows that he doesn’t have the luxury of having a happy childhood. he doesn’t deserve one, anyway. he learns what adults are and starts calling his caretaker mr. moon instead of papa. because mr. moon isn’t his papa, and his papa left him a long time ago. although donghyuck is only one year younger than him, mark feels like a rugged veteran. 

donghyuck still looks like he has been kissed by the spirits and enveloped by the warm sun rays that enter the windows and dry the sheets. mark is jealous, mark is so jealous. but mark has no time to be jealous. he is twelve and old enough to clean the plates and hang the clothes. he is too old for fairies and sunshine.

* * *

people start leaving the orphanage. but mark never leaves the orphanage. because no one wants him. he is too old to leave now. donghyuck stays, as well. mark doesn’t really know why no one wants donghyuck. donghyuck grows up and still has that same vibrant smile on his face. donghyuck deserves to be somewhere. somewhere where mark isn’t, because mark is heartempty and heartempty people end up nowhere with no one.

taeil still takes care of the children. mark stopped calling him mr. moon because he stayed at the orphanage too long and taeil told him to drop the honorifics. 

he tells mark that sometimes, he misses mark calling him papa.

mark tells him he has many more children to call him papa.

taeil says that it isn’t the same, and that even someone like mark deserves love and comfort and a _ papa. _

mark doesn’t know why, but he begins to cry. he just wanted a _ papa. _ but time passed and papa became mr. moon and mr. moon became taeil and his real papa left him ten years ago so he should forget it because taeil is enough even though taeil is not his real papa. 

donghyuck still talks to him and still smiles to him even though mark is a nobody. he started watching tv so he now knows that the best guys get pretty girls and big houses. donghyuck deserves pretty girls and a big house. donghyuck deserves the world, and taeil cannot give him that, mark cannot give him that, so mark gives him the sunflowers he grows on the windowsill flower pot. he doesn’t have green fingers, but he spent three months trying to grow them. 

mark decides it is worth it when donghyuck smiles at him and slides the oversized flower into his hair. 

donghyuck is pretty, too.

* * *

mark graduates from high school. donghyuck doesn’t- yet, because donghyuck is one year younger than him. mark is offered a scholarship to study in seoul, a big city far away from his small town. he cries a little, taeil cries a lot. donghyuck cries, too. 

donghyuck says he’ll miss him. his heart twinges and mark realises that this is his family, too. taeil, donghyuck, and the kids that come in and out every year. this small orphanage is his big home, filled with warmth and the hugs that taeil gives out to every single kid, because taeil says that every single kid is special.

but mark realises that donghyuck is the special-est out there, because even after twelve years there no one had really rivalled his smile, his beauty, and his personality. donghyuck was born to love and be loved, and mark was lucky enough to experience it.

and now mark was leaving, for better things, for seoul. 

but he had pinkie promised taeil to come back, so he wouldn’t be leaving for good.

* * *

seoul is fun. he meets new people and makes new friends. he meets jaehyun and doyoung, his dorm neighbours, and he gets along with yukhei, his room mate. but he never forgets his home. he never forgets donghyuck and taeil and washing the clothes and making the beds.

until one day, taeil calls, like he does on sundays, and mark doesn't want to hear it. 

mark, he begins. it's about donghyuck.

mark wanted to put the phone down. he knows that taeil doesn’t have good news and if it’s bad news about donghyuck, he doesn’t want to hear it. but it’s donghyuck and at the end of the day mark is nothing without donghyuck, so he hears it anyway.

mark, donghyuck left yesterday. mark, he said he was going to jeju because his aunt adopted him. mark, he’s leaving, why is he leaving, I’m nothing without you kids, I’m sorry I got so attached but you- you guys are like my sons-

taeil, he responds, soft and unsure. you’re always my _ papa _. you know that right?

yeah, taeil says, voice wet and dripping with emotion. I love you, mark. 

I love you too, taeil. 

mark doesn’t have donghyuck’s number, he didn’t have a phone till he came to seoul. but he supposes the memories he made with donghyuck would have been enough to last him a lifetime. 

* * *

he was wrong. 

it finally hits mark that he’s never ever going to see donghyuck again, and that he left without telling mark. he left without saying goodbye, and maybe mark didn’t mean that much to donghyuck. because everyone leaves him in the end, a useless heartempty that can’t love like normal people can. his dad left him, his mom left him, and now donghyuck leaves him because he finally sees that mark can’t be like the pretty girls on screen, because mark is a boy, an almost-boy, a heartempty loser, someone that can’t love like donghyuck can. 

and mark is almost okay with it. because donghyuck is like the scintillating sun, blinding the world with his love and his big warm heart, whose soulmate should be equally bright, equally vibrant, whose soulmate shouldn't be mark.

but mark still hopes donghyuck thinks of him when clouds cover the sun and when the tides are low.

* * *

seoul’s taught him many things. he knows that it’s okay to like boys when he sees jaehyun and doyoung making out on their balcony. he knows that not everyone has big houses and pretty girls because his dorm is small but it is enough. he doesn't get pretty girls because he realised that he didn't like them. he only likes donghyuck. 

but then donghyuck left, and so mark is just another heartempty almost-boy trying to get through life again.

taeil still calls. but he's empty, too. mark is miles away and donghyuck packed up and left. taeil tells him that maeyoung did something again, and that kaeun learnt to use the dishwasher. taeil tells him that he misses mark like mad, and that donghyuck still hadn’t called back.

jeju’s too far, taeil cries. 

jeju’s too far.

* * *

fate is a funny thing. mark’s friends tell him that fate will definitely repair their broken bond, that fate will draw them back together with a red string tied to their pinkies, that donghyuck wouldn’t go for good. 

but fate never worked and fate never liked mark so he never saw donghyuck. he went to jeju thrice by himself and once with taeil but they never saw him and maybe he lied to them. mark tried to move on but his mother keeps coming back and telling him he’s not enough and he begins to believe it all over again. he falls once, twice, thrice, and he’s back to feeling like nothing again.

the way it was supposed to. 

he begins to wake up empty and walk around empty and go to work empty and emptiness becomes apart of him again, he is heartempty again, it’s back, and he’s back to being loveless and unwanted again.

he doesn’t want to depend on donghyuck to have a good life; it’s not fair for him to have to bear the brunt of mark’s own faults. mark’s problems are his, and donghyuck should be happy always, so it was better if he left him. 

so he lives like this for the next two years, cruising through university on autopilot, never filling the endlessly empty hole caused by a certain lee donghyuck.

* * *

mark starts working at the university hospital once he graduates. taeil's still far away and he hasn't heard from donghyuck in five years but he still tries to be happy. jaehyun works in the hospital too, so he isn't lonely when he does his rounds in the wards. he sees sick children and he sees sick adults but he never sees donghyuck. he thinks he lived long enough without him to forget him but that's the lie he uses to tell himself life is still good.

why is he nothing without donghyuck? this terrible, toxic mindset of needing someone to live well is consuming him and he hates it and he wants to move on but at the end of the day he is still just that seven year old boy at the orphanage.

he is just still that seven year old boy at the orphanage.

* * *

time flies, but mark doesn’t really change. he still thinks about donghyuck, but it's been so long mark is sure he wouldn't know how to react if he did come back. should he laugh? should he cry? should he run to him to engulf him in a hug? should he respectfully wave to him from a distance? mark really doesn't know. somehow, there's a small part in him who hopes that donghyuck never comes back. so donghyuck will just remain as the best part of his youth. 

so donghyuck will always be that sunflower-loving boy at the orphanage. 

* * *

he thinks he's okay until one day when taeil calls him and says mark, mark, listen, I know where donghyuck is.

he so badly wanted to forget him, and this couldn't have come at a more terrible time. his shifts in the hospital were stacking up. he slept less and he ate less and when he did have time got himself he just crashed on his bed and passed out for several hours until he needed to work again. 

taeil sounded hopeful. that was the worst part. he should be happy about this - donghyuck had practically been the centre of his universe for the past 15 years. but he supposes somewhere in the middle his world stopped spinning because everyday is the _ same. _

he hates it so much. 

taeil says mark, mark, I took a holiday to jeju. donghyuck's working at a flower shop, he still remembers me, he still remembers _ you. he wants you to come see him. _

mark begins to cry, and he’s surprised he’s crying, but he supposes it's because he hasn't cried in ages, and because it's donghyuck. it's always been donghyuck.

he realises it had always been donghyuck and he manages a taeil I'll call you back later and hangs up.

he buys the first plane ticket to jeju.

* * *

he arrives in jeju two days later, searching for the flower shop that taeil had given him the address to. he’s not sure if he should even turn up, but he knows his incessant need for donghyuck drilling holes in his brain needs a remedy; something medicine cannot cure.

maybe donghyuck was lying to taeil to save his face, maybe donghyuck doesn’t want to see him, maybe donghyuck already has someone else-

mark is crushed by the weight of his thoughts but he can’t stop overthinking he can never stop overthinking fifteen years of crying alone into his pillow had ruined him and maybe he cannot feel anymore. maybe he’s fake again maybe- maybe he’s heartempty again and maybe his mother was right all along. 

but still, he finds himself in front of 119 flowers. 

_ all roads lead to rome _

_ none of them lead to home. _

_ I hope at least one leads to you. _

* * *

the flower shop looks like any other; tall lilies in their plastic vases welcome him, and the soft pastel sign with _ 119 flowers _embossed onto the surface swings in greeting. 

but what catches mark’s eye is the wilted sunflower in that familiar pot still standing by the window. 

and the boy that comes out of the shop, the tinkle of the bell signalling his arrival.

mark runs away. he runs away so fast the trees are a blur and the shops are a blur and he is a blur. he runs away so fast he doesn’t need to process his feelings. are those tears? is it just sweat? 

he runs fifteen miles an hour and his mind runs a million.

somewhere between heavy breathing and his feet slamming down on the brick road, he hears someone running _ after _him.

mark, please stop, mark, stop running, please.

mark doesn’t stop running. he has made up his mind and he decides that he hates this voice and that he hates this life and maybe, if they had met some other way, it would have been good, but this is terrifying and mark is never ready.

mark, the voice says more urgently, please stop.

mark doesn’t stop running, his muscles are pulsing in pain and he can feel his legs burning, he’s not getting enough oxygen and he’s just in so much pain maybe it’s because of him - maybe it’s because of donghyuck. 

it’s always been donghyuck.

* * *

mark can’t run anymore and neither can the boy so they both stop but they never get close. mark can’t face _ this. _he can’t face the fact that he can’t keep running away from things like this but he must, he must run or else he would fall again. he can’t fall again.

even after running he is still beautiful and he is still the same. mark is the only one that changed. 

mark, please listen to me, I’m so sorry.

donghyuck you left without saying a word, what was I supposed to do?

mark, it’s not like that, I-

we’re different now, we’re not the same, we can’t be like this. 

only _ you _ changed, mark.

* * *

mark can’t process everything all at once, but before he can stop or run away again, he realises that arms wrap around his lanky frame and maybe he has found home again.

_ I hope at least one leads to home. _

**Author's Note:**

> not even lying this fic title is from some mrt ad that I saw called generations of grit and gold or smt lmao thank u LTA
> 
> but thank u sm for reading this terrible fic ㅎ.ㅎ  
if u want to talk...u can hit me up in the DMs on twt @phriedphalanges


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